In recent years a wide array of replacement cardiac valves have been proposed for treating cardiac valve diseases, such as valve regurgitation or stenosis. The human heart contains four valves that separate the atria from the lungs and ventricles: The tricuspid valve disposed between the right atrium and right ventricle, the pulmonary valve disposed between the right ventricle and the pulmonary artery, the bicuspid (or mitral) valve disposed between the left atrium and the left ventricle, and the aortic valve disposed between the left ventricle and the aorta. Each of these valves has a slightly different anatomy than the others, requiring differently-designed replacement valve solutions.
For example, whereas U.S. patent application Ser. No. US 2006/0265056 to Nguyen et al. describes a catheter-delivered aortic valve having a self-expanding stent that causes the valve to become anchored to the valve annulus, such a solution may not be feasible for repair of a mitral valve due to the possibility that the self-expanding stent may occlude the left ventricle outflow tract for the adjacent aortic valve. Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide a transcatheter or minimally-invasive cardiac valve repair system that can employ a replacement valve disposed in an expandable stent body, but that avoids potential disadvantages of the prior art.
In view of the drawbacks attendant upon using expandable stents for some cardiac valve repair procedures, the state-of-the-art for previously-known cardiac repair procedures has been surgical repair or replacement of defective valves. For example, mitral valve repair currently is handled as an open surgical procedure, in which the defective valve leaflets are cut away and a new valve body, employing either natural tissue or synthetic fabric, is sewn to the valve annulus. U.S. Pat. No. 4,490,859 to Black et al. describes such a replacement valve, which comprises a polymer frame mounted on a sewing ring, wherein the frame is covered by an animal tissue or synthetic fabric frame.
Other previously-known attempts to repair mitral valves using a minimally invasive or catheter-based approach have sought to reduce the time, skill and effort required to attach the replacement valve to the existing valve annulus using barbs or spring-like clips, as described, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 7,101,395 to Tremulis et al. U.S. Pat. No. 6,419,696 to Ortiz et al. describes a mitral valve repair system comprising a double helix structure that may delivered via catheter or a minimally-invasive route so that upper and lower rings of the double helix sandwich the valve leaflets and increase the rigidity of the leaflets, thus reducing regurgitation. That patent further describes that its double helix structure may be used to anchor a valve body having a fixed outer circumference that is delivered via a surgical or minimally-invasive route. Neither of the valve repair systems described in the foregoing patents permits installation of a replacement cardiac valve body using a purely transcatheter delivery route.
In view of the above-noted drawbacks of previously-known systems, it would be desirable to provide methods and apparatus for delivering a replacement cardiac valve via a transcatheter approach, either transvascularly or via a minimally-invasive approach.
It also would be desirable to provide a replacement cardiac valve, and methods of using same, that may be deployed with reduced risk of obstructing an outflow tract of an adjacent cardiac valve.
It further would be desirable to provide a replacement cardiac valve, and methods of using same, wherein the anchor used to fasten an expandable cardiac valve body limits expansion of the cardiac valve body to a predetermined size and shape.
It still further would be desirable to provide a replacement cardiac valve, and methods of using same, wherein the replacement cardiac valve is configured to firmly anchor the valve body to the pre-existing cardiac valve leaflets, while reducing the risk of perivalvular leakage.
It also would be desirable to provide a replacement cardiac valve, and methods of using same in which, in some embodiments, an anchor of the replacement cardiac valve reshapes the pre-existing valve annulus to accommodate alternative replacement valve body configurations.